Final Chapter

This will be the last installment of pictures from building the new house. It's now been 13 months since we broke ground but we are finally getting settled in and most of the boxes have been unpacked. So here is a large batch of recent photos, mostly of the interior...but I did start with an exterior shot of our new turkey neighbors. We don't think our turkeys followed us from our old neighborhood since those flocks were mostly mothers and their babies. Here in Hawks Landing we seem to mostly have these roving bands of males. Here we have "turkey in the straw." Our neighbors reported seeing a bear in their yard a couple of weeks ago, but we haven't seen any since we've been here. You can click on the pictures for a larger view.

Our almost finished kitchen (still waiting for additional parts for the track lighting)

Family Room, with newly hung TV

This is the cabinet that hides all the electronics for the stereo and TV...

and here's all the stuff it hides.

A picture featuring our new rustic coffee table.

Dining Room

Norris' office

Another shot of Norris' office

Master Bedroom and our new cherry chest of drawers

and new dresser made of bubinga wood on the top and sides and curly maple on the front with walnut trim

In this shot you can see some of our new rustic bed

More of the master bedroom

Shower in the master bath

Sink area of the master bath

Guest room

Part of the laundry room

Guest bath shower

Guest bath tub

More of the guest bath

Foyer with our as-yet unfinished wormy chestnut wood floor inlay

Cheryl's quilting studio

Another view of the studio

Part of Cheryl's office

The other side of Cheryl's office and the Murphy bed

Stairs from the foyer up to the main living level

We actually can now park both cars in the garage since most of the boxes have been unpacked.

And this side of the garage will be part of Norris' wood shop once we get some of this stuff better organized and stored or given away.

This is the part of the deck that will become screened in porch in a week or so. The deck furniture is new.

This part of the deck wraps around the front of the house and has our old deck furniture.

The Weeping Love Grass that was seeded on the slope of our road is finally starting to sprout, thanks to some recent rains.

To wrap it up, here's one last shot of the outside. The Weeping Love Grass we had planted to stabilize our front slope has taken off nicely and held up to the recent rains of Tropical Storm Fay with hardly any erosion.

Thats it. From a mound of solid rock with trees on top to finished home in a little over a year. It's been a long and intense experience, one that we don't hope to repeat anytime soon. But we can truly say its "our home" since we had it designed and built the way we wanted, which isn't something we'd have if we bought an existing home. For our friends who are now in the process of building their own homes, lots of luck!